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29 August, 2008

Friday Favorite Show

Television is, for the most part, supremely overrated. Back in the days before this blog and a roommate, when I could throw on the boob tube and leave it running in the background, I used to avoid the networks like bubonic plague. Coworkers would come in blathering about Survivor and American Idol. It astonished them when I couldn't join the conversation because I'd been watching Hot Rocks (geology), Cosmos (I trust I need not explain), or Dirty Jobs (oh, Mike Rowe, how you made me appreciate my suck-ass job!).

But my passion, virtually my religion, was the one-two punch of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

I'm ashamed to admit that I used to watch Daily Show only because Jon Stewart is cute and funny, that I wished they'd lay off the political crap, and that when Colbert Report first started airing, I wasn't impressed.

Then, in mid-2006, the political stuff started getting really interesting. It started making me angry. I'd known for a long time that Bush was an outrageous fuck-up - even in my apolitical days, one of my friends was too ashamed to admit he'd voted for Bush yet again in 2004 - but the extent of his fuckery hadn't struck me until I saw it played out night after night on The Daily Show.

Then I started understanding Colbert's superb satire.

Then I started getting involved.

Because of those shows, I dragged my sorry arse out of bed early on Election Day in November '06, and voted a straight Democratic ticket. That night at work, my beloved coworkers and I watched the election returns come in, and brought the house down screaming when the Dems swept to victory. It was a huge, powerful moment, made possible because of two fake news shows.

These days, there's no TV in my room, and it's too hard to blog and view at the same time. I'm horrifically pressed for time. But I sneak the occasional moment to catch up on Daily Show and Colbert Report. They're the only shows I'll watch. They're the only shows I'll ever need. And you can thank them for this blog.

You might enjoy Harry Shearer's Le Show. He may not be quite the genius that Stewart is, but his humor is usually subtler. Here is an exception that proves the rule:("Cheny" and "McCain" are talking about McCain's ad comparing Obama to Paris.)

McCain: "You should have seen the ad we didn't run. We photoshopped Barak's face onto that dude in Paris' sex tape"